World of Warcraft is “hard to watch”, says Blizzard eSports boss

World of Warcraft may be the undisputed king of MMOs, but it’s not the eSports champion it should be. Blizzard hopes to change that.

WoW has a long history as an eSport, and it’s one of a small number of core titles regularly featured in tournaments. Despite that, for spectators its reputation as an eSport drags far behind that of various shooters, RTS games, and MOBAs.

It sounds like Blizzard is well aware of this issue.

“I can definitely say that WoW 3v3 Arena right now is kind of hard to watch, in the form that it is,” Blizzard eSports head Kim Phan told PCGamesN at DreamHack Stockholm, where the site reports the the European WoW Arena Tournament drew very few spectators.

“And so there are things that we want to evaluate.”

Phan said that World of Warcraft wasn’t designed with eSports in mind, as the scene wasn’t anywhere near as healthy as it is today. As such, it isn’t spectator friendly.

The new expansion, Warlords of Draenor, will contain a few fixes, like a spectator mode – but don’t worry. Blizzard won’t be overhauling the game just to suit one portion of its audience.

“It is taking a game that was out before all of this happened, and then figuring out how to enhance it and support it,” Phan said.

The full interview, available through the link above, also includes some discussion of how other WoW game modes might be a better fit for eSports.

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